BLIND CV PREP
Anonymise a CV PDF before it goes to the client
You have a CV to get to the client by lunchtime and it still says who the candidate is, where he works now and what his mobile number is. The last one you did had a black box the client could copy straight through. Here is the careful version.
- Two methods, different consequences: true redaction that takes the text out of the file, or a matched cover you retype as Candidate A.
- The CV never leaves your browser, so a third party's personal data is not sitting on somebody else's server while you tidy it up.
- Free to edit. Downloading needs a free account and starts at 99p for your first week.
Drag & drop your PDF here
Private: processed in your browser
Will this work on your file?
| Your file | Works here? | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| A CV the candidate exported from Word or from LinkedIn | Yes | Every line is real text, so one Replace all reaches the surname in the running header, the footer and the referee block at once. |
| A CV the candidate sent you as a scan | After one step | A redaction box still works, because a redacted page is rebuilt as an image anyway. Nothing can be retyped until OCR has read the page. Edit Scanned PDF |
| One PDF holding three candidates' CVs | After one step | Redaction is per page, but the client should not receive the other two at all. Split them first, then anonymise each one. Split PDF |
| A CV with a headshot in the top corner | Yes | Drag Redact over the photo itself. The page is rebuilt as a picture with your box on it, so redacting the contact block alone leaves the headshot exactly where it was. |
| A CV fronted by your agency's own cover sheet | Not here | Nothing to anonymise there. If the page should not reach the client, take it out instead of blacking out half of it. Delete Pages |
Who ends up on this page
An agency resourcer with six CVs to send before five
Two of them name the client's closest competitor in the second paragraph.
A consultant who has already been caught once
The client copied a name out of a black box while they were both on the call.
An in-house recruiter running a blind sift
The panel must not see names, schools or photographs until the shortlist is agreed.
An account manager writing the process down
Somebody has to decide what gets stripped and what stays before the next audit.
How to do it
- 1
Count the mentions before you touch anything
The surname sits in a running header on every page, the mobile is in the footer, and two referees are named with their employers at the end.
- 2
Drag Redact over anything that must be unrecoverable
The Redact tool draws a black box and marks what is under it for removal. On export that page is rebuilt without the original content.
- 3
Or click the line with Select and retype it as Candidate A
Clicking a line lets you type over it in the document's own font, and Ctrl+F, or Cmd+F on a Mac, then Replace all swaps the surname across every page at once.
- 4
Export, then test it the way the client will
Open the exported file, press Ctrl+A and Ctrl+C, paste it into a blank email. If a name you thought was redacted comes out, you covered it instead of removing it.
What you can change
- Replace the surname in the running header on all four pages in a single Replace all.
- Black out the mobile number and the personal email address in the contact block at the top.
- Turn the three role descriptions that name Barclays into a UK retail bank.
- Cut the two referees, their job titles and their companies from the block at the end, six lines in total.
- Remove the LinkedIn address and the personal portfolio link from the footer.
- Black out the headshot in the top right corner of page one with a Redact box.
- Reword a job title that gives away one employer's internal grading, such as AVP, Retail Risk.
How it actually works
Redacting and covering look identical on screen and are not the same operation. Drag the Redact tool and export, and that page is rebuilt: its text, its own images and its links are deleted out of the file rather than hidden, and the page comes back as a picture of itself with your black box painted on top. Nothing on it can be selected, copied or parsed as text again. Covering works the other way round. The editor drops a fill matched to the page and restamps what you type in the document's own font, so the page is still genuine text, and the characters you covered are still in the file underneath it.
So choose by who reads the CV. If a human at the client reads it and the candidate must not be traceable, redact. If the file goes into a parser that has to return skills, dates and titles, cover and retype instead: the name becomes Candidate A, the employer becomes a UK retail bank, and the parser still gets a document it can read. You cannot have both on one page. You can mix by page: redact the contact block on page one, retype the employer names on pages two and three.
Why the usual routes break this file
Draw a black rectangle in a free PDF viewer
The rectangle floats above the page as an annotation and the text carries on underneath it. Ctrl+A in the client's reader returns the name, the number and the current employer in full.
Print it, black it out with a marker, scan it back
The name is genuinely gone and so is everything else. The client gets a grey scan their system cannot search, and an unredacted paper copy sits on your desk.
Export to Word, delete the name, save back to PDF
The conversion re-paginates the CV. The client is then reading an anonymised document that no longer matches the layout the candidate wrote, and if the two are ever put side by side the difference reads as you having rewritten it.
Ask the candidate to send an anonymised version
They take their name off the top and leave their employer named in three role descriptions and in the referee block. They are not the one who loses the fee.
What this will not do
- Title and Author are not touched. A field carrying the candidate's name survives the export, so check the finished PDF's properties before sending it. The producer line and the modified date are rewritten, as they are by any tool that saves a PDF.
- A truly redacted page stops being selectable text: everything on it becomes an image, so a client who parses the CV gets nothing back from that page. That image is a picture of the page as it was, with your black box drawn on it, so redaction defeats copying and searching rather than somebody determined to pull the file apart.
- A cover you retype is not a redaction. The page stays real text and the original characters remain underneath: right for a parser, wrong for an identity that must be unrecoverable.
- Hyperlink targets survive a cover. The visible email can read Candidate A while the link still points at the real address, so hover every link on a covered page.
- Nothing here spots identifying detail for you. A niche job title, a named project or an unusual school can point at one person with the name long gone.
- Editing is free. Downloading the anonymised CV needs a free account and 99p for your first week, then a plan from £11.99 a year.
Where this stops being a formatting question
Anonymising is about who can approach your candidate behind your back. Removing dates, a career break or a disclosure to make somebody easier to sell is a different decision, and it belongs to the candidate.
Questions people ask
If the client selects all and copies, what actually comes out?
On a page you truly redacted, the original text is gone from the file: a select-all returns the image, and there is nothing left to copy. On a page you covered and retyped, the client gets your replacement and the original characters as well, because a cover paints over text without removing it. Run the test on your own export before you send it: select all, copy, paste into a blank email, and read what arrives.
The client runs everything through their ATS. Which method do I use?
Cover and retype, on every page the parser has to read. True redaction rebuilds that page as an image, and a parser handed an image returns nothing: no skills, no dates, no titles, and your candidate lands in the client's system as an empty record. Click each line with Select and type over it, Candidate A where the name was. The original characters do stay in the file underneath.
The visible email is covered. Is the link underneath it still live?
Quite possibly, and this is where anonymised CVs leak. A hyperlink is a separate object attached to the page, so covering or retyping the visible address leaves the link target untouched: the client hovers it and reads the real email in the status bar. A page you truly redact has its annotations deleted along with its content, links included. Otherwise, hover every link in the finished file.
Does the download strip the document properties?
No. Nothing here writes Title or Author, so a field holding the candidate's name, put there by whatever produced the original, comes through unchanged. Plenty of people open document properties out of habit and some platforms read them on import. Check the finished PDF's properties in your own reader, and clear those fields wherever you store or send the file.
Can it find every mention of the candidate for me?
No. Find and replace matches literally, so the surname in the header will match while J. Okonkwo in the referee block, a double-barrelled name broken across two lines, or an initialled sign-off will not. Redaction boxes you draw yourself. Read the header, the footer, the role descriptions and the referee block first, and count: the surname alone is usually in eight or nine places.
What can I leave in an anonymised CV?
Strip identity, keep assessability. The sector and rough size of each employer, every date, the seniority of each role, the skills and the qualifications all stay, because a CV cut below that cannot be shortlisted comes straight back to you. Replace a named employer with a description rather than deleting it, so the client can still judge the environment. A niche job title and a named internal project are worth a second look.
Open the CV, count where the name actually appears, then decide page by page: Redact what must be unrecoverable, retype what the client's system still has to read. Editing costs nothing, so try both on a copy before you commit.
Open your PDF